This Week In Internet Marketing 2016 02 16

This week in internet marketing, we’ve gathered some of the best stories and articles from the web. We’re looking at tricks for taking the guesswork out of SEO strategy, as well as tips for increasing organic outreach through social media, and optimizing for competitors keywords. And we’ve also included helpful ideas for building effective content marketing, and suggestions on how to get the most out of PPC.

The companies that are most successful at growing their business through SEO strategies are those that invest in the proper planning and research. A new study outlines a few SEO strategies in particular that most businesses should keep in mind. Firstly, though the quality of backlinks is increasingly important, the quantity of backlinks continues to be the top ranking factor. Also, slow loading sites are certain death—users want fast-loading pages, and Google does its best to give the people what they want. Another finding suggests that content with a tight, specific focus performs better than content that tries to cover a broad range of topics.

Organic growth on social media isn’t something you have to sit by and wait for. With the right approach, you can take the reigns and make it happen for your company. Don’t underestimate the power of keywords—do keyword research and review some daily crawl data to find out which words are already working for your site and start using those words in your social posts. Do the same research for your competitors’ successes, track their top performing content and keywords, and use this info to draw their audience to your company.

It’s a tricky strategy to use your competitors’ product names and branded phrases in your company’s keywords, but it can be a highly effective approach to SEO. This forces you to take a step back, and really ask yourself what your customers are searching for and how that differs between you and your competitors. With some careful keyword research, and by carefully pinpointing the sweet spot to target in the sales funnel, you can build an informed and successful campaign using your competitors keywords to grow your business.

More businesses are using content marketing than ever before, but many are still trying to figure out how to do it properly. One study found that the biggest difficulties marketers have listed include producing engaging content, posting it regularly, and measuring its effectiveness. Keep in mind that trying to appeal to the broadest possible audience can actually work against you—focus instead on doing a great job at appealing to a particular segment of people.

The PPC market is expensive, crowded and competitive, but mastering PPC is a crucial aspect of most companies’ digital marketing strategy. Selecting the best ad words, bidding on brand keywords, which are keywords and phrases that include a brand name, and getting a good return on ad spend takes a great deal of research, planning and marketing savvy. But the rewards and business growth can be very high when PPC is done well.

Emily is a writer and editor with a background in journalism, including magazines, web content and infographics. Her writing has been published in Maclean's, Canadian Living and in CBC blogs, among others.

Emily is a writer and editor with a background in journalism, including magazines, web content and infographics. Her writing has been published in Maclean's, Canadian Living and in CBC blogs, among others.